How Ukraine is sabotaging Russia’s army

Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SOF) or possibly partisan fighters have conducted successfully attacks on three significant targets in occupied Crimea since 10 August. An initial attack on the Saki airbase caused a fire that quickly spread to stored ammunition and fuel, resulting in multiple huge secondary explosions. These destroyed at least nine Russian fast jets and inflicted extensive damage to the base’s facilities and surrounding buildings. On 16 August further attacks were carried out on a large ammunition and equipment depot at the strategic railroad junction town of Dzhankoiskyi and another Russian airbase at Gvardeyskoye causing further fires and secondary explosions.

All three attacks were initially blamed on accidents and then sabotage by the Russian Ministry of Defence and Russian media, often in wildly conflicting reports. Dzhankoiskyi is over 160 km from the nearest Ukrainian frontline positions, and Gvardeyskoye and Saki are both over 210 km away. As such, they sit well beyond the range of the famous HIMARS rocket artillery system that has been used so successfully by the Ukrainian army to hit Russian ammunition dumps and other key logistical and headquarters targets in the immediate Russian rear areas since mid-June.